Being a gay or lesbian teenager in a big city has its challenges, however, for many LGBT youth, big cities are islands of tolerance and freedom. In a big city, eventually you’ll find like minds, LGBT-friendly businesses and even community groups.
In small-town Alberta, however, being different can be lonely, even dangerous.
That’s why it was notable, this past June, when a young man bravely stepped out of the closet during his high school valedictorian speech in the southern Alberta town of Fort Macleod.
Colin Walmsley looks like your everyday square-jawed high school jock: captain of the school rugby team, picked as MVP on the Track and Field team, and a member of the volleyball squad. Throw in his popularity among his peers, his achievements both as an honours student and president of the grad council, and you have an exemplary student.
While many people in the same situation might have done everything in their power to fly below the radar until they left town, Colin knowingly drew a lot of attention to himself. In the past, he would deflect or just ignore the issue of his sexuality. But from the way he was raised, that approach felt cowardly; he felt he needed to stick to his principles.
Colin knew in a small town, rumours can swirl and words can get twisted. “I didn’t want that to happen, I wanted people to hear the words directly from my mouth...” he told GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine. As soon as he found out he was Valedictorian, he thought it was time people knew the whole person; his valedictorian speech would get the word out to as many people as possible at one time. Also, he wanted to make a statement to show he was not afraid of anyone else’s beliefs anymore.
However, he didn’t want to jump into this without gauging some reactions first, so he had a discussion this with his parents. While they were a little surprised to find out, he guessed they would be just fine with it. “They’ve always been very supportive of gay issues,” said Colin.
The day of his valedictorian speech, he told a few friends prior to the event. No one suspected, and better yet, no one of his friends or family took any issue to it.
When it was time for his speech, Colin was prepared for a stunned silence from the crowd. He didn’t expect the initial reaction of laughter. Of course, if a 6’1’’ tall athlete, honour student, and general “Big Man on Campus” admits to being gay, one might think it to be a ruse. Colin insisted that he wasn’t kidding; then came the silence.
He expected there would be some people who were not pleased to hear this, addressing it directly in his speech: “I know that there are close-minded individuals out there in the world, even at this very ceremony, who believe that homosexuality is a choice...Why would anyone choose to be ostracized and cast out, as society does to gays today? Who wants to be forced to deny who they are?” Colin stated, adding, “You know, I read the Letters to the Editor [in the local paper] that say gays are sinners who are going to Hell, and I want to strangle these people, to yell at them to wake up to the real world and not be so arrogant to think that their way is the only way, that they’re right and everyone else is wrong. These people are the true cancers of society.”
For a small town, it went a lot better than Colin expected – a lot of his friends were really supportive, being from diverse religions and races themselves. Afterwards, none of his close friends shunned him, and someone even wrote a positive letter to the Fort Macleod Gazette about the incident. The only (somewhat) negative response to this was to say it was selfish of Colin to use the occasion to “out” himself.
As well, in the time since his graduation, he still hasn’t gotten any negative reaction. “There’s the look once in a while...you can tell people are staring at me, but no one’s actually come and talked to me or confronted me.” Colin does notice there’s a generational difference at work - he finds it’s the younger people who are more open.
While Colin would like to think people are a bit more accepting than they let on, he does concede one thing that may have helped buffer himself from any negative reaction he may have received: his social standing. “It’s possible...you don’t like to think that, but sometimes I wonder, is it because I am that valedictorian/top athlete, they accept it and if I was less, they wouldn’t.”
But nevertheless, times are changing. Colin knows of one other person his age in town, who came out at roughly the same time in a Mormon family, also with a positive outcome.
This is not to say that every gay teen or lesbian in every small town (or even big city) will have it easy from here on out. Certainly some will, while some will fly under the radar to later bloom in college, and some will be relentlessly bullied to the point of suicide.
But Colin made a lot of people - teenagers and adults – realize that being gay is not a weakness. 